What is MetaMask? Really… why is it important?

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 First of all, lets start with identifying what distributed web is. Most of the things you see on your browser (e.g., Chrome, Firefox or Opera.), including this article, comes from a computer that sits in a chilled room within a large data center somewhere. Many little computers and phones, which we often call clients, connect to the large central server to download bits of information that they need. This is how the modern web works. We call this the Centralized Web, because, you guessed it, all the data sits somewhere in a central location. However, some groups of people thought that having one large entity that stores, manages and even owns data is not very comfortable and often not safe. Instead, people decided to build a network where everyone can own and share a bit of data with everyone else in the network. So, instead of computers and phones connecting to a single server to download bits of information they need, they connect to many people who own smaller bits of information they need. And once they receive the information, they also begin to share it with others who need the same information. We call this the Distributed Web.


 There have been many famous applications of distributed web. The two most well-known examples are Napster and Torrent. Napster is a distributed web specifically built to share songs between its users. It has no central server that stores the songs, and users download and upload songs that they want and that they own. Similarly, Torrent is a distributed web specifically built to share all types of files between its users.
Blockchain essentially is a distributed web, similar to Napster or Torrent, built to serve a different purpose. Blockchain is not a coin or some currency. It actually is a distributed web to log, store and share secure, verified, and unmodifiable transactions. These transactions can include any type of actions between two entities. For example, in the case of bitcoin, transferring bitcoin between user A and user B can be stored in a blockchain. As you can see blockchain can store and share any type of data that needs security. Bitcoin is basically one application of blockchain technology.

 

  Ethereum is a type of blockchain that is built for applications that need to store data or run programs in the distributed web. It is the “distributed web of tomorrow”. Unlike bitcoin, Napster or Torrent, it can actually store data in the form of a computer program called smart contract. Computer owners can be part of the Ethereum network, obtain and share the smart contract and receive reward (Ethers) for running the smart contract. Once your computer is part of the Ethereum network, running smart contracts and sharing it with others, it is now a Ethereum Node.
  Ethereum allows programmers to write apps that can run on many people’s computers. Such type of apps are called dApps, which stands for distributed applications. dApps are being built as we speak and it is slowly gaining more traction. 

Now, let’s start MetaMask. call me::+91 9090816483

  MetaMask (https://metamask.io/) is a browser extensions that lets you run dApps without being part of the Ethereum network and run smart contracts on that Node. MetaMask manages your Ethereum wallet, which contains your Ethers (or money), and allows you to send and receive Ethers through a dApp of interest. It is a pretty neat tool. 



How to work MetaMask…..? call me::+91 9090816483
Suppose you want to use Ethereum to buy a pair of socks from Amazon. The regular web puts Amazon’s servers at the focus: Your browser makes HTTP requests to it for the webpage and sends your payment details to it. However, Ethereum is decentralized. To pay you would have to write your transaction on the Ethereum blockchain through any Ethereum node (could be on your computer or elsewhere) and broadcast it across the network. Amazon would then look at the blockchain to check that Ether has been transferred from your account into its own.
At the moment, regular web browsers don’t know how to connect to an Ethereum node and read or write to the Ethereum blockchain so you would have to start up your Mist browser and fiddle with little details like eth addresses to make the payment. This is where MetaMask comes in.
MetaMask injects a javascript library called web3.js into the namespace of each page your browser loads. web3.js is written by the Ethereum core team and has functions that regular webpages can use to make read and write requests on the blockchain that are consistent with the existing protocol .
Furthermore, MetaMask allows users to specify which Ethereum node to send these requests to. The ability to send requests to nodes outside of the user’s computers is important because it means that people can use Ethereum without having to download a node consisting of the 10+GB blockchain on to their computers.
It’s a wallet, at it’s core. The same way you can have a wallet on your computer that stores ETH, this stores your ETH in a chrome extension. But having a chrome extension as your wallet has some benefits.
For example, if you go to a Dapp (Ethereum Name Service, Variabl.io, Leeroy.io, etc), you would be able to confirm transactions from your browser wallet in a way that would be challenging from your computer wallet.
So while MetaMask is a wallet, it’s the biggest benefit is being a wallet for running Dapps. No other wallet service (that I know) is quite as integrated.
MetaMask also allows you to access the world of the decentralized web by letting you use several Ethereum DApps through it.
Developers
  Developed by an experienced team of developers, UI, and QA people, the company is based out of California, USA.

How to install MetaMask.

MetaMask is a simple browser extension that can run on Chrome browsers extension. To install, you first click the link (https://metamask.io/)  above and install the browser extension. Once installed, you see on the right top of your browser. Once you click on it, you can now accept their terms of use as seen below. Now you can after creating an account, you get a list of 12 words that can be used to retrieve your account when you forget your password. MAKE SURE to save this somewhere SAFE  where no one can see. follow the step...

1. Go to MetaMask.io and access the MetaMask Chrome extension as shown below.Now install the chrome extension and click on “Add extension”.
2. Now, you can see the added chrome extension that shows the “privacy notice” where you need to “Accept”.
3. After accepting the “privacy notice”, it will prompt you to accept “Terms Of Use”.
4. Now set up the password and create your wallet by clicking “Create”. Remember, this password is for encryption so create a strong one.



 6. The seed words will be shown that you need to copy somewhere offline and store in a secure manner. Note: I have shown you these 12 words here but they are not to be shown to anyone.
6. Once you have copied, click on “I’ve Copied It Somewhere Safe” and you will see this home screen of the wallet. This marks the completion of the installation of MetaMask wallet.
How to manage (Send/Receive) Ether on MetaMask wallet?
Now that you have installed the MetaMask wallet, let’s see how to receive and send ETH on MetaMask.
1. To receive ETH, click on three dots as shown in the below image and click on “Show QR Code”.


2.On clicking “QR code”, you will see this QR code and ETH address which you can either scan or copy to send ETH on it.

3. Now to send ETH out of MetaMask wallet to any other wallet, click on “Send” as shown on the home screen of the wallet.
4. You will be able to see below screen where you can add “Recipient Address” & “Amount” that you need to transfer out.
This way you can access your MetaMask and send/receive ETH and other tokens.
Note: There are many phishing scams around MetaMask, so be careful and bookmark the MetaMask wallet official link and never forget to check for secure https connection.
I hope you now have a brief understanding of what distributed web, blockchain, Ethereum, and dApps are and how you can play around with them using MetaMask. Feel free to explore the large space of dApps and have fun, but most importantly be safe and responsible!

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